


A Form Of Art

by uglychui



Series: Ceasefire [11]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Drunk Shenanigans, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Self-Reflection, Self-Worth Issues, Thea finally lets everything out, Thea's a loud drunk, also bad language, always bad language, but before mission: High Noon, but she's also less cold, getting drunk, occurs after discovering Kadara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-05 05:36:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13381272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uglychui/pseuds/uglychui
Summary: Thea finds herself drinking with Evfra at theTavataan.





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

 

_Stitch by stitch I tear apart_

_If brokenness is a form of art_

_I must be a poster child prodigy_

_Thread by thread I come apart_

_If brokenness is a work of art_

_surely this must be my masterpiece_

 

* * *

 

Aya. Beautiful, green, luscious _Aya_. After so many run-ins with broken planets with inhospitable conditions and some with less than desirable inhabitants, Aya was a treat. And yet, here she was, drinking away at the _Tavataan_. All alone, like she always was.

 

She shook her head of these solitary thoughts. No, she wasn’t alone anymore. After Voeld, after Kadara, after everything they’d gone through together, her crew had actually come to respect her to some degree. At times, she actually felt like she’d earned the title of Pathfinder.

 

As vindicated as she felt to be recognized, it was a big step away from the crumbling, self-loathing woman that was Thea Ryder. No matter her successes, she couldn’t shake the feeling of inadequacy.

 

If one disregarded her title, who would she be? She downed a glass of a strange milky purple substance. She’d be a nobody— just a scared little girl who was too cowardly to stay in her galaxy alone. A mindless idiot who blindly followed an absent father and an unknown organization to a mostly-unexplored galaxy millions and millions of light years away. A sniveling excuse of a Pathfinder riding on the practically-royal coattails of her esteemed father, who sacrificed himself to save her pathetic ass. 

 

Who would she be without her father? Without SAM?

 

She gestured at Roaan for another drink. She already knew the answer to that question: she’d be fucking dead. As soon as the glass clinked against the surface of the bar, she picked it up and poured it down her throat, disgusted by the bitter burn.

 

“Never took you for a drinker, Pathfinder,” a baritone voice drawled beside her.

 

She scoffed breathily, throwing back another shot and wincing as it went down. Her eyes glanced over to Evfra in acknowledgment as he took a seat next to her and nodded to Roaan for a drink. Thea tried not to let her disappointment show; though she and Evfra had gotten along better since rescuing the Moshae, she had hoped to drink alone tonight, devoid of small talk. She’d even asked SAM to not disturb her.

 

“I’m not,” she chuckled halfheartedly. “Just thought I’d try it out tonight. New galaxy, new me, right?”

 

Evfra grunted at her answer, but he said nothing more as Roaan set two glasses down in front of him. He picked up the glasses and threw them back, one after the other. When he set the second glass down, Thea cocked an eyebrow.

 

“Who are you trying to impress, Evfra?” she smirked.

 

He rolled his eyes, gesturing for more drinks. “Is it too much to ask for silence?”

 

She shrugged. “Fine by me, but for the record, you spoke first.”

 

“And what a mistake it was.” When Roaan set more glasses in front of her, Evfra frowned. “How much have you had to drink?”

 

Thea put a finger to her lips, shaking her head. “ _Shhhhhhhh_ , remember?” She gulped down one of the glasses.

 

Evfra made a face, grumbling into his own glass. “Fine by me,” he parroted.

 

They continued to drink in silence, listening to the crisp gusts of wind whirling around them and the rustling of the trees. The _Tavataan_ ’s natural sunlight came and went, covered by stormy clouds. Before they could adjust to the loss of light, however, they were surrounded by the pattering of raindrops.

 

“Of course it’s raining,” Evfra sighed. “It always does.”

 

Thea looked sideways at him— or what she thought could be him. Her vision had gotten a bit blurry. “It always rains on Aya?” Jaal had told her that among other aspects, Aya was known for its bountiful sunlight.

 

Evfra scoffed. “Only when _you’re_ here.”

 

She chuckled, downing another drink. “Sounds right,” she slurred slightly. At his raised brow, she explained. “There’s a saying with us humans: to have a black cloud hanging over one’s head. It generally means that one is depressed or in a bad mood. Only in my case, it’s literal.” She swirled her drink around, eyes growing unfocused.

 

Evfra eyed her. “And which one are you, Pathfinder?”

 

She smirked, glaring into her glass. “I wonder.” She downed the shot, her mood souring. Just how much had she had to drink? How was she still standing? She shook her head, making her vision spin. “This… this isn’t working. I need so’thing else.”

 

“It’s working just fine,” Evfra muttered back.

 

Her head felt heavy, so she let it hang from her shoulders. “Drwack shaid—” She heaved a frustrated sigh, trying to remember how tongues worked. “ _Drack_ _said_ drinking was s’posed to de-stress me. But it-it’s not working.” Her swaying head shot up as an idea bloomed in her mind. She reached over to Evfra to slap his arm. “Hey, let’s fi—!”

 

But in her drunken haze, she misjudged the trajectory of her arm and her hand met air instead as she tipped out of her seat, her full weight tumbling into Evfra and knocking the both of them down to the wet ground. She heard Evfra land with a pained grunt as she fell hard beside him, her head crashing into his chest. She slowly rolled off him and laid flat on the ground.

 

“ _Fuck_ , that hurt!” she screamed— apparently, she was an obnoxiously loud drunk. Her hand came up to massage her bruising hip, wincing as her fingers touched a raw scrape. She let out an exasperated breath, rolling her head to look at Evfra. “Anyways… let’s fight.”

 

Evfra glared at her with eyes filled with annoyed rage, and his body shot up to stand, his clothes dripping wet. “ _Stars save me from the stupidity of drunkards_.” He cast her one last withering look before turning to leave.

 

She groaned childishly to the grey skies with weighted eyes. “Evfraaaaaa, let’s fiiiight!” When she didn’t hear a response, she continued whining, singing from the top of her lungs, “The leader of the Resistance is a _scaredy-cat!_ _Scaredy-cat!_ A big, fucking _scare_ —”

 

“Evfra,” Roaan called out in warning. “You’re not leaving her here. Not like _this_.”

 

Thea heard angry grumbling and heavy footsteps pounding into the puddles of rain before her arm was painfully yanked up and her body was thrown over Evfra’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She laughed when she realized that he was still mumbling to himself, “… _stupid_ human with her _stupid_ drinking and her _stupid_ …”

 

Her head lolled back and forth from his stomping, her vision blacking out. “You… you’re whining… like a- like a _child_ ,” she breathed in a high-pitched voice.

 

He grunted. “ _I’m_ a child? You should take a look at yourself.”

 

She chuckled. “I’ve seen myself. No thanks.” She mustered up the rest of her strength to pick her head up, taking in their surroundings— and started kicking at him with renewed vigor when she realized he was going to take her back to the _Tempest_.

 

“What are you— _stop that_!” He threw her to the ground, his chest huffed out in irritance. As she painstakingly teetered back onto her feet, he looked up into the skies, sighing deeply to regain his composure. “Pathfi—”

 

“Don’ wanna go back,” she slurred, pushing past him to go back the way they came. Her feet shuffled clumsily and she tripped, landing on her hands and knees. Pain coursed through her and she brought her palms up to inspect the bloody scrapes. “Mother _fucker_ , that hurts,” she complained, trying to pick out the small pebbles that had embedded themselves into her skin.

 

A blue hand slapped her hand away and she found herself staring into an oceanic abyss, her vision blurring out of focus. She blinked and the illusion was gone, replaced by Evfra’s hard yet uncharacteristically concerned gaze.

 

Fuck, she must be _really_ drunk.

 

His hands gently wrapped around her wrists and pulled her limp body up, only letting go once she was able to stand. Thea took a couple of wobbly steps forward.

 

And slipped on the steps that her hazy vision had overlooked, sending her face-first into the ground beneath her. She’d had enough sense to cushion her head during her fall, but it didn’t make it any less painful. She felt her upper teeth dig into the inside of her lip, tasting the copper of her blood. She wrinkled her face at the taste and felt pain shoot from her nose. She palmed it gingerly— not broken but she’d definitely feel that in the morning. She brought her knees up and felt the bloody scrapes through the fabric of her rain-soaked pants. She tried to stand, but the pain that shot through her entire being proved too much for her. She laid back down on the cold, wet ground, defeated and accepting of her fate.

 

“Evfraaaaaaaa,” she called out pitifully. “Carry meeeeeee.” She heard him huff a long, hard sigh, and could almost picture him looking into the sky again, eyes closed, as if he were praying.

 

He grabbed her underarms, hoisting her over his shoulders once again. “Tell me why I’m doing this again,” he mumbled.

 

“Because you’re a good fucking person,” Thea answered. As soon as Evfra took a step, her body swayed with his movements, making her head spin and her stomach nauseous. She tapped his back, covering her mouth. “No no no, gonna throw up like this.”

 

Evfra’s shoulder rose with his sigh, and he set her down, only to take her into his arms, cradling her body to his. She curled into his chest, shielding her face from the heavy drops of rain. The soft rocking of her body calmed her nausea. If not for the chilling wetness of their drenched clothes, she might have been lulled to sleep.

 

“Mmm, much better,” she mumbled. She felt Evfra scoff as he took them further and further away from the _Tempest_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know about you guys, but when I'm drunk, I'm super loud, whiny, and idiotic. So that's why Thea is how she is. Also, Evfra is a lot easier to imagine if you see that meme of Ben Affleck whenever he sighs. (This one! http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/fashion/daily/2016/08/25/25-ben-affleck-sad-smoke.nocrop.w710.h2147483647.2x.jpg and https://i.imgur.com/mwQwF9w.png)
> 
> Anyways, I hope this turns out okay for you guys! I actually wrote this fic a month ago, before I wrote "Hope Is A Four-Letter Word". This fic was actually supposed to be the very first time Thea and Evfra were supposed to bond and form a connection, and he was supposed to start out all grumpy and sneering, calling her " _human_ " and whatnot. But I fucked up the tone I had him take by writing that second chapter of "Ruthless Calculus"— where Thea and Evfra bond over the making of hard decisions (I don't regret it though). Because I made them connect already, it wouldn't make sense to have him revert back to his rude attitude. So I rewrote this fic to fit their current relationship. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy and leave a kudos/comment if you have the time!


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

“Wake up,” Evfra shook her, somewhat impatiently.

 

Thea jerked herself awake, peeling her face away from his chest. And the pungent stench of vomit overwhelmed her senses. She gagged and felt Evfra tense beneath her. Tasting the inside of her mouth, she covered her face in embarrassment.

 

Somewhere along the way, she had vomited onto his chest in her sleep. A lot. And her face was covered in it.

 

“I am so, _so_ sorry. Y-you can put me down now. In fact, I’m begging you to.”

 

Without a word, he set her down. As he leaned forward, she heard chunks of vomit peeling from his chest and dropping onto the ground with a loud _plop_! Her face reddened at the sound.

 

 _God, I want to_ **die** , she screamed in her head.

 

She looked at everything but him, too humiliated to face his judgment. They were in an isolated area overlooking most of the city, closer to the sky. “Where are we?”

 

He walked past her to one of the houses just ahead. “My house.” When she didn’t follow, he threw over his shoulder, “Or you could just stand there covered in your own filth.”

 

She scrambled after him like a scolded child, trailing closely behind as he entered. Once inside, she stepped away from the door, allowing it to close. She drew her arms around her chest, the chill of her sopping wet clothes thoroughly having set in, cautiously taking in her surroundings.

 

Evfra rolled his eyes and ushered her to the bathroom. “You can look around later. Shower first. I hear you humans can’t handle a little cold.” When she nodded, he added: “Don’t take too long. I need to take one, too.” And with that, he closed the door.

 

Thea wasted no time in shedding her clothes off and jumping into the shower. The hot water spraying down her body felt sublime, though she hissed in pain when it hit the raw skin of the number of scrapes she’d accumulated in her drunken haze. She cleaned the skin around them as best as she could and gently smoothed the embedded pebbles out of her skin. She looked down at herself and shook her head; she looked like she’d been thrown out of a skycar in flight.

 

It was only after she’d scrubbed off the layer of dirt that clung to her skin and stepped out of the shower did she remember that she didn’t have a spare change of clothes. At least there was a clean towel hanging on a nearby rack. She dried off her short hair and body as best as she could and wrapped the towel around her.

 

She stepped out of the bathroom, warm steam spilling out into the hallway. For reasons unbeknownst to her, she found herself tiptoeing.

 

“If you’re quite done sneaking around, there’s a change of clothes in the bedroom.”

 

A startled gasp escaped her as she spun around, the narrow hallway seemingly enhancing the baritone and volume of his voice. Evfra stood behind her with a thumb pointing behind him. She followed his finger and squeezed past him, careful not to touch him. She found the bedroom and closed the door. Though Jaal had informed her that angara were open about nudity, she wasn’t about to give Evfra a crash course on the physical attributes of the human female body. As she examined the clothes he put out for her, she couldn’t help but chuckle. They were obviously his and would completely dwarf her.

 

 _Beggars can’t be choosers_ , she mused. She threw the thick white cotton-like shirt over her head and it slid down heavily to her thighs. The collar of the shirt that hung down one of her shoulders should have seemed sensual but was just plain comical. She felt like a child trying on her father’s clothing. She had to roll up the arms of the shirt so many times that it got tiring, so she just left them unrolled and draping over the tips of her fingers. The black pants, while not shaped for her legs, were less complicated, as they tightened at the ankles. There was a bit of cloth bunched up around her knees, but other than that, they were comfortable. She was feeling pleasantly toasty.

 

As she finished up, she took a moment to look around the room. It was very spartan, with a lone bed at the wall that looked like it hadn’t been slept in and a wooden writing desk, littered with glowing datapads, by the opposite wall. Other than that, she found nothing personalized, nothing that told her that this was indeed Evfra’s room.

 

She huffed. _I guess we’re more alike than I thought._

 

When she opened the door to exit to bedroom, she found a very _naked_ Evfra on the opposite side, hand poised to knock. Her eyes unabashedly chased the droplets of water that rolled down his broad chest in tempting swirls, outlining the sensual curve of his muscles. She had the sudden urge to lick the droplets off him.

 

Apparently, she’d been spending _way_ too much time with a certain perverted asari.

 

“Are you done ogling?” His tone betrayed no emotion other than impatience.

 

She never broke her gaze, her eyes following the drops as they dipped lower and lower. “And if I say no?”

 

His eyes narrowed in annoyance and he dragged her out of his bedroom and into the living room, wasting no time in marching right back.

 

She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth at the loss of the unexpected but increasingly welcome eye candy.

 

In almost no time at all, Evfra emerged from the bedroom in identical clothing to hers. She stifled a laugh, though he definitely caught it.

 

“What is it now?” he sighed.

 

She pointed at their outfits. “Is this all you have? They’re all the same?”

 

“They fulfill their purpose. Now shut up and sit down.” He brushed past her into his tiny kitchen, tinkering around.

 

She ignored his demand and followed closely behind. “What are you doing? What is that?” she asked childishly.

 

He sighed heavily again. She smirked at how often he’d been sighing in her presence. Even so, he surprisingly indulged her with an answer. “I’m making something warm to drink. Now go sit down.”

 

Again, she ignored him, hovering behind him, genuinely curious. He sighed again at her stubbornness and let her be. He poured two steaming cups of whatever-it-was and picked one up, walking over to the couch.

 

“Since you refuse to sit quietly, be of some use and grab your own cup,” he called over his shoulder. A wide grin broke out at how uncharacteristically cute she found his grumpiness in such a situation and she cheerfully complied, following him to the couch. She sat on the opposite end of the couch, though with the short length of the couch and his bulky size, she may as well have sat right next to him. They drank in comfortable silence, warming their chilled hands with the cups. She glanced over to his hands, mildly entertained with how his cup seemed to disappear in his large hands. She was content to remain in silence, just observing him. But it seemed Evfra had other things in mind.

 

“I will only ask this once, so answer truthfully if you wish to divulge: are you alright?”

 

Shocked out of her comfort, she turned to face him only to find him already staring at her, eyes almost kind. When she realized he was referring to her earlier outburst, she broke eye contact and stared down at the cup in between her hands. Sure enough, her thumbs were fiddling with each other. _God_ , she wished she could break that habit.

 

She thought about deflecting, like she always did. She didn’t want to hear platitudes about how her father would have been proud of her. He’d had her whole life to be proud of her and he hadn’t uttered a single word of praise. Not. One. Word. She didn’t want to hear about medical drabble associated with depression and dissociation and insomnia. She already knew those were problems she was having. Why should hearing about them from a doctor who could only assume what she was going through suddenly change her views on life? She didn’t want to hear about how Scott would have wanted her to be happy, as if he had already passed. No, no one knew what Scott would have wanted because he’s in a fucking coma and can’t speak for himself and she wished everyone would just stop basing her life’s purpose around other people and just focus on what she wanted.

 

 _And what the fuck is that, Thea?_ a small voice shouted at her. _What do you want?_

 

And with the mess her mind and life were in, the answer should have been harder to pick out— harder to parse— from the endless torpedo of her increasing wants and desires. But right now, in this moment, there was only one answer to her question, and in turn, to Evfra’s question:

 

_I want someone to listen to me. Just… to listen._

She brought her eyes to Evfra’s and held his gaze. “No,” she whispered. “I’m not alright.”

 

He set his cup down on the floor beside him and repositioned his body, partially turned to her with an open expression. “Then— as you humans would say— I’m all ears.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know some members of the _Tempest_ crew offered to listen to Thea if she ever needed to talk, but for those with depression, do you guys ever get that feeling where you appreciate the other party offering to listen but it just doesn't feel right to you? Do you get the feeling that they only offered because they felt obligated to, but they don't really want to know? Yeeeeeaaahhh, me too. But lucky for Thea, Evfra doesn't feel obligated towards anyone, so she can actually trust that he's asking because he wants to know. 
> 
> I personally am super in love with Evfra. I'm salty that Bioware didn't make him an LI or make a second installment to Andromeda, so that maybe Ryder could romance him in the second one (like what we got with Garrus!). But alas, we Evfra fans shall make do with our meager imaginations. What do you guys think about the progression of the friendship between Thea and Evfra? Let me know! :)


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

 

She leaned against the arm of the couch and— not really thinking about whether or not it was rude— brought her legs up on the couch, her feet landing in Evfra’s lap. He eyed her feet cautiously. Realizing what she had just done, she moved to lift her feet off him. Before she could lift them fully, however, his hand shot out to bring them back down to his lap, giving them a curt pat.

 

She fought the urge to smile. Where was this Evfra coming from?

 

Though she’d said she wanted to talk, they remained in silence for what could have been minutes— maybe hours. She didn’t know and he didn’t rush her.

 

When she finally built up the courage to speak again, his gaze fell on her and he nodded in encouragement. The words spilled out of her without much thought. “I… I never wanted to come here. To Andromeda, I mean. My father, Alec— my brother and I weren’t very close to him. He ignored us, so we ignored him. And when our mother died, the last bit of connection we had with him was severed. We lost all contact with him and for the most part, we were fine with that.”

 

She forced out a humorless laugh. “Turns out, it wasn’t any different from before. Our lives went on normally over the next few months. But one day, out of nowhere, Scott and I got a message from him— containing nothing but coordinates. I ignored it, but Scott convinced me to go with him.

 

“‘Let’s hear him out,’ he’d said. ‘Whatever it is can’t be as bad as usual.’ And so I agreed, if only to humor him. Scott was always more of the forgiving type. He never admitted it, but he would have accepted Alec back into his life, if only he would apologize.”

 

Evfra grunted in disapproval. “That’s naïve. And child’s play to manipulate.”

 

She smiled wistfully. “Someone needs to be the dreamer of the family.” Her smile disappeared as quick as it had come. “But lo and behold, we go to the coordinates and it’s Alec in the flesh, telling us we’ve _got_ to resign from the Alliance military, we’ve _got_ to prepare to leave, and we’ve _got_ to leave everyone we know behind because we’ve _got_ to go to Andromeda.” She sniffled loudly. “Not even a word of greeting. Just… started dishing out orders as soon as we got off the shuttle and expected us to obey him.”

 

“So here you are,” Evfra concluded.

 

She scoffed. “Didn’t exactly happen right away. I told him to go shove it, get bent, fuck himself— literally any variation of the phrase I could think of. I told him we weren’t going to follow him just because he told us to. That he was just running away from the Milky Way because of his failures. That running to Andromeda wasn’t suddenly going to change the shitty person that he was. I could have kept going, but then Scott said he’d go.” She leaned forward, folding in on herself.

 

Her voice got quiet. “He said he’d go. And when we got back to my apartment, he begged me to listen, to give Alec a chance, to trust _him_ if no one else. And we’d just lost our mother— I-I would have been all alone. So I gave in; I agreed to go.

 

“But we get here, after being frozen for over 600 years, and suddenly, the _Hyperion_ is on fire and I find out that Scott’s cryopod has malfunctioned— that the one person I sacrificed _everything_ for might not ever wake up again. Then I’m left relying on the one person I _never_ wanted to rely on, surrounded by people he personally hand-picked and showered with words of wisdom— people he treated better than his own fucking children!”

 

Her breaths came in short bursts, and she realized that her hands were shaking and she was breaking out in a cold sweat. Telltale signs of an anxiety attack— _great_. This was _exactly_ what she needed right now.

 

As she closed her eyes in an attempt to regulate her breathing, she felt a warm weight on her knee and her eyes snapped open. Evfra’s hand squeezed her knee, a brief tingle of bioelectricity streaming gently from her knee and up her spine. She offered him a grateful smile and placed her own hand on top of his, using his touch as an anchor.

 

Gathering herself, she continued. “The first planetary contact we had, we crashed onto.”

 

Evfra huffed, his mouth lopsided in a grimace. “Sounds about right.”

 

A bubbling laugh spilled out from her mouth. “Yeah, exactly. But on this planet we called Habitat 7, we also found the kett, the Remnant, and most importantly, the vaults.”

 

“I see you found everything all wrapped up for you then.”

 

She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Not… quite. Alec and I got blown off the platform after he activated the vault. The visor on my helmet broke to all hell and I started suffocating. Would have been dead in a matter of minutes. Then Alec comes and does the unthinkable: he takes off his damn helmet and sacrifices his stupid life to save mine, and tells SAM to make me Pathfinder.” Her voice shook. “I wish he hadn’t done that. Any of that.”

 

Evfra quieted at her admission.

 

Fearing his judgement, she trail-blazed on. “Since coming here, I’ve killed more than I’ve helped, and the Initiative is fine with it, as long as it doesn’t affect leadership. We came here to explore, but instead, I’m being used as a spearhead for war. And I never even asked for all this. I’m not even supposed to be alive! All I wanted was—” A lingering whine erupted from within her and she couldn’t help it as her tears fell. “I didn’t want to be alone, so I came here with the only family I had left, and I _still_ ended up alone! And I never wanted it, but without the title of Pathfinder, I’m nothing— I’ve achieved nothing. Without it, I’m just Thea— I’m just a broken piece of shit who’s barely scraping by.”

 

She bowed her head in shame, fully aware that she was complaining about her duty to the leader of the angaran Resistance. To Evfra, who had lost his family to the kett and dedicated his entire life to defeating them, even at the cost of his own people. At that very moment, she regretted her words. She regretted taking him up on his offer to talk, and she regretted ever engaging him at the _Tavataan_.

 

After a few tense minutes, Evfra finally spoke. “Do you know why I’m so good at what I do? Why I can stand to send my fellow angara off to die, only to send more after them?” She didn’t bother generating a response and he didn’t wait for it. “Do you know why the Initiative believes so heavily in you? Because we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. We know the pain of living in this galaxy more than anyone, and fight with all our being to keep that pain from reaching others. It doesn’t matter that you’re still young; you’ve proven— to everyone and to me— time and time again that you possess the qualities of a leader. You ask yourself who you are— it’s a pointless question. You are the Pathfinder. Nothing can change that— not even an untimely death.

 

“You seem to think that with the title comes respect. But before you gained the title, I’d only heard the name ‘Pathfinder’ spat out in insult and scorn. But now, when the name is uttered in the crowds all over the map of Heleus, there is hope.”

 

Her head rose from her knees and she slowly met his dark gaze, strong and fiery. “Hope is a strength the kett fear. And it was not I, but _you_ — _your_ efforts— who gave that power back to the people. To my people. _That_ is what you’ve achieved. Who are you, you ask?”

 

His gaze ripped through the core of her soul and she found a safe haven in the depths of his oceanic eyes, not missing a word he said. “You are Thea Ryder, the broken, piece-of-shit human Pathfinder, and you are hope.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol, sorry it's been a while. I figured I should probably take a break from writing before I burn out. But I'm back-ish!
> 
> And the entire time I was writing this chapter, I kept chuckling to myself like an idiot. One of my other installments is called "Hope Is A Four-Letter Word." And "Thea" has four letters. Get it, get it?? *insert Grunt laugh* Haaaaa, I'm stupid.


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

 

Thea woke up laying on her side to a stiff back, sore from having slept in one position for too long. She twisted her back and stretched out her legs, and was rewarded with a series of sickeningly satisfying cracks in her spine and knees. She let out a long sigh, feeling strangely refreshed and light. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been able to sleep through the night without thrashing. She opened her eyes and blinked at the unfamiliar ceiling and the couch she was currently lounging on.

 

_Where the hell…?_

Pain flowed back into her senses as she registered the aches in various parts of her body and the sharp pain in her nose that would make her eyes water whenever she scrunched up her face.

 

She sat up carefully to take in her surroundings. And there, at her feet, was Evfra, slightly in a reclined position but snoring softly. His head had fallen to the side to rest on the arm of the couch, his arms loosely crossed over his chest. The previous night’s occurrences came back to her in a blinding rush.

 

“ _Good morning, Thea_ ,” SAM greeted through their private channel.

 

The sudden reappearance of SAM caused her to flinch. “ _Morning, SAM. Thanks for going silent yesterday._ ”

 

“ _Of course_. _Should we awaken General de Tershaav?_ ” SAM inquired. Thea gazed at his slumbering form, her eyes soft. After he had showered her with validation last night, she had broken down yet again to the point of sleepiness. Before she allowed exhaustion to take over her, she had reached for his hand and thanked him softly— and apologized, once again, for vomiting on him. She’d had no idea that he had spent the night at her feet. Her mind wandered to his seemingly untouched bed.

 

“ _No_ ,” she told SAM. “ _Let him sleep. He must be exhausted._ ”

 

“ _Understood. Additionally, the crew of the_ Tempest _has stated that they will be ready to ship out upon your return._ ”

 

“ _Thanks, SAM. I’ll be right over._ ”

 

She felt SAM recede to the back of her mind as she slowly removed herself from the couch, every movement painstakingly miniscule as to not awaken Evfra. She applauded herself inwardly as she straightened up, as he had not stirred in her removal. Thea knew she should hurry and leave, knowing she had overstayed her welcome. But she allowed herself a certain selfishness and took in Evfra’s sleeping form. Gone was his infamous frown, replaced by a smooth peacefulness that even the fierce scar that ran from his crown to his chin could not disturb. Though he must not have been much older than she, he looked infinitely younger, almost as if he weren’t raised in a world of constant war. She savored this vulnerability, feeling a peculiar warmth spread from her chest.

 

She was struck by a sudden idea and pulled up her omnitool, activating the camera function. She bent down and snapped a picture of this precious boyish look, snickering quietly. Satisfied with her new blackmail material, she straightened and moved to tiptoe her way towards the door.

 

And her stupid flappy foot loudly knocked over the cup Evfra had set down last night. The shrill clinking of ceramic, combined with her panicked movements, was enough to shake Evfra from his sleep. His upper body shot up so that he was sitting ramrod straight, eyes zeroing in on the culprit.

 

Thea froze in his sights, face wrinkled in a harsh wince. She held up a stiff hand. “G-good morning…?”

 

When he realized it was her, he relaxed his posture and let himself fall back onto the couch, releasing a loud sigh. Sensing that the danger had passed, Thea slowly straightened her posture and scratched at her temple, eyes glaring at her stupid feet.

 

_So much for leaving quietly_ , she chided herself.

 

“You look better,” Evfra commented.

 

She blinked in surprise. She had expected a gruff shooing. “Y-yeah. I feel tons better, thanks to you.” She clasped her hands together and her thumbs started fiddling. “So, umm, thank you, Evfra, for last night. For everything.”

 

“I did nothing but watch you make a fool of yourself and merely stated facts, Pathfinder.”

 

She shrugged. “Yeah sure, but that was more than enough for me. So just accept my gratitude, won’t you?” The mischievous wheels in her head turned and she leaned forward with a worried expression, whispering conspiratorially, “You just spent the entire night comforting me while I cried myself to sleep on your couch. Do you know what that means?”

 

Evfra glared suspiciously at her, folding his arms over his chest. “What?”

 

She grinned, almost wickedly. “That means we’re _friends_ now.”

 

He groaned and rolled his eyes. “ _No_.”

 

“And you know what _friends_ do? They call each other by their names.”

 

“No,” he repeated.

 

“Oh, come on, Evfra! You’ll be my first friend here! Please?” She didn’t even mind begging Evfra to be her friend. No matter what his decision was, she already regarded him as one.

 

Evfra grimaced, his face looking like he’d just eaten something sour. His eyes narrowed as he stared at her in complete silence. She saw the flicker in his eyes when he came to a decision, sighing, “ _Isharay_ … Thea.”

 

She grinned triumphantly. “ _Isharay_ , Evfra! Let’s hang out next time!” She turned and opened the door, the bright sunlight enhancing the white of her shirt, blinding her momentarily. “ _Oh_!” She turned back to Evfra. “What should I do with your clothes? How do I send it back?”

 

He waved her away, shielding his eyes from the sudden brightness. “Throw it out, burn it— it matters not. Do what you will. Now go.”

 

Matter solved, she waved to him one last time with a smile before making for the _Tempest_.

 

She got lost twice, but really, who was keeping count?

 

When she boarded, she was pleased to see no one witnessing her late return. It would not do to be the topic of gossip. She rushed to her quarters, changing out of the borrowed clothing and pulling on her Initiative casualwear and hoodie. She folded up Evfra’s clothing and, shrugging, she added them to her wardrobe.

 

He _did_ say she could do whatever she wanted with it, and they _were_ quite comfortable.

 

She stepped out and climbed the ladder to the cockpit, greeting Suvi and Kallo. Suvi turned to greet her back, and let out a shocked noise. “Ryder, what happened to your face?”

 

Kallo craned his neck to see. “A fight?”

 

She waved their worries off. “Got drunk off my ass last night and tripped over my own damn feet on the steps.” She clapped her hands together dramatically. “ _Bam!_ Ate it hard.”

 

Suvi rose from her seat and poked at her nose, frowning in concern. “Oh, but Ryder, you don’t drink, you said. Stay away from it next time, okay? And make sure you go see Lexi.”

 

Thea rolled her eyes. “ _Yes, Mother_.”

 

“You’d better.” She sat back down. “You seem chipper today,” she noted with her usual bright eyes.

 

Thea smiled at her. “Me? Chipper?” She looked out the glass and spotted a certain cerulean angara donned in his usual cyan _rofjinn_ — _Must be a spare,_ Thea thought _—_ over a white cotton shirt and well-fitting black pants in the distance, speaking to another angara.

 

She brought her gaze back to Suvi’s expectant face, beaming. “I made a friend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for Thea and Evfra for now! Thank you guys for picking this up and let me know your thoughts!


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